I had a unique experience where after having been praised by my project lead at my assignment (Union Bank) for having done excellent work quickly to bail them out of a serious jam caused by a previous Rose International contractor, Rose International without explanation or warning took $1416.94 from my bi-weekly paycheck. Their convoluted story went like this - because my supervisor submitted the approval of a previous week's time sheet on Wednesday of that week instead of Tuesday due to her personal issues, and because they had just switched to ADP as their payroll processor and ADP required time sheet approvals by Tuesday, they had decided to treat one of the weeks of my two-week paycheck as an "advance". The charge for making a one-day advance to suit their needs, not mine? $1416.94. In other words, for the week ending May 13, 2016, where I earned $2600.00 ($65.00 per hour times 40 hours) in gross salary ($2155.05 net) approved by the client, my check for that week was only $738.11 ($2155.05 minus the one-day "advance" fee of $1416.94). When I called them in shock to correct it (but fully expecting we would share a laugh at the stupidity of the mistake), they became belligerent and arrogant, acting as though they had done me a "favor" by "advancing" me the paycheck I was already due! When I continued to insist on being paid in full, they then lobbied the client to dismiss me from the assignment, threatening to pull all of their other consultants from the bank if the bank did not comply.
After investigation by authorities and banking regulators, the ultimate conclusion was that Rose International is an Indian-managed company specializing in exploiting their fellow countrymen, that is, Indians, by paying them half-rate H1B-visa salaries and locking them into the virtual slavery of H1B visa sponsorship. Because their H1B consultants do not dare to stand up to them due to cultural and H1B-slavery issues, they dip into those consultant's salaries at will whenever they need to in order to keep the lights turned on. They simply were not prepared for me, a 62-year-old Caucasian male with thirty years of stellar performance in this industry, to stand up to them, and especially not to accept their laughable excuses.
Fortunately, I was able to find a third-party buyer for the source code I produced for which I had not been paid, and Union Bank remains under regulatory investigation for their role in this incident. In other words, it was their client who ultimately paid the price for what was under California law criminal behavior by Rose International.
I am publishing a website describing this entire bizarre experience (completely documented in a hundred e-mail exchanges), and in my work with a major university studying one of my personal security projects, I have made available the data and source code as a case history in really stupid corporate behaviors (separate and apart from this strange incident with this recruiter, there is a serious issue with Union Bank's code quality and software security processes that allows hackers to gain entry to the Federal Reserve system and SWIFT international system through Union Bank's Oasis program).
